The elimination of stage breaks in NASCAR road course races has both drawn praise and the ire of fans and drivers alike. On one hand, the new norm allows for proper and continuous racing without several interruptions or the chance of heading into overtime ever so often. Meanwhile, on the other hand, these caution-less long races have made the overall racing and passing opportunities negligible, something Joey Logano recently shared his take on.
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Recently, while speaking about the lack of stage breaks in road course races, the current defending champion had a few words to share. The two-time Cup Series champion made his opinion clear that he was not a fan of NASCAR’s new norm of eliminating the concept of stage breaks.
Joey Logano is against NASCAR’s decision to remove stage breaks
While speaking with Sirius XM NASCAR Radion, Logano mentioned, “I like the stage breaks. I don’t know if I’m against the majority or not. I kind of like having a caution to rerack them and go again. I don’t know why we changed from what we were doing and it’s different than other places.”
Count @joeylogano as a fan of bringing back stage cautions on road courses moving forward ⬇️
“I don’t know why we changed from what we were doing […] to me, it’s not manufacturing a race.”
More with the champ → https://t.co/oek7E77mXk pic.twitter.com/Wcm5EAaDKd
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) August 22, 2023
“I don’t know to me it’s not manufacturing a race or any way. We all know where the caution is gonna fall. It’s not like a mystery debris caution that wasn’t actually debris this that’s not this. It’s a real caution.”
He added how the system of stage breaks used to arrive at a pre-determined time. Hence, everyone knew its due arrival and could plan out their strategies as such, without having to rely solely on a caution flag due to a racing incident.
Logano explains why caution is important in road course racing
Furthermore, in order to justify his argument, Logano used the example of the race at Watkins Glen. The race had only a few overtakes throughout its duration. However, it was only during Chase Elliott’s fuel mishap that the sole caution of the race came out. The lack of stage breaks had removed the need for caution, hence cars did not have the option to bunch up and push for positions now and then.
The Team Penske driver said, “With the help of caution, it was pretty much cut and dry on like, what’s your strategy is going to be like? Here’s what it is. And the only way we gained a few spots, it’s because Chase Elliott ran out of gas and drew a caution. And a few guys that haven’t pitted yet get screwed over. They didn’t get their track position back. That was all that happened.”
Logano asked that they put cautions back in the race considering neither do they wreck that much anymore nor are the cars prone to breaking down in races to the point where there’s natural cautions. The Penske driver claimed that at this rate, they’ll be running NASCAR races like F1, “all the way through.”
